Jon Hassell's debate put aside, this is a great 2xLP compilation, there's actually a lot of music here and absolutely nothing to throw away. I can imagine if your are a fan of minimal ambiant drone whatever bullshit you will be disappointed, this can be too organic and rich for your cold soul.

I'm with Origamihirn, a lot of the stuff on this left me cold (horses for courses, natch), and didn't particularly strike me as being in the spirit of John Hassell's Fourth World aesthetic. For me a lot of this stuff crosses the line into naffer New Age tropes and synth-flute-isms, and if there's something that the last few years have taught us, it's that there's plenty of great New Age stuff that manages to transcend the stigma around the tag. There are a handful of really great tunes, but too much skippable stuff (particularly the more overtly tabla/conga led stuff, ugh) for me to want to hang onto it on vinyl. I'll stick with playlisting the best bits on Spotify for this one personally.

Honestly, i don't think this got the feel of fourth world. Europeans tend to see it a bit flat in that sense - anything with a little marimba and tribal repetetive is fourth world... Sadly not.. it's about the magic realism and post-erotic moods, more than anything, and if you listen to Jon Hassell speak about it it's pretty evident. Great ethnic ambient release, but far from fourth world. Excuse the purism, but if there's one thing in the world that still challenges me with its abstract yet material is this, and it's a pity people are so quick to put labels on something that doesn't even fit the label.